Ghosts Abound
in Nebraska Towns!

Ghost stories (and ghosts?)
have been around through the ages. Here are just a few accounts
of Nebraska's otherworldly citizens.

The story of Urania Clara Mills, a former Nebraska Wesleyan University
employee believed to haunt the building in which she died, became
a national sensation in 1963, when the specter was sighted in
the university's C. C. White building. Lincoln author Duane Hutchinson
recounted this and other ghostly tales in this book, first of
a four part series. Source: Loaned by Dale Bacon,
Lincoln

Most of the stories in this 1997 book, written byShirley
Gilfert of Falls City, are about Nebraska ghosts. Source: Loaned by Dale Bacon,
Lincoln

Alan Boye's book relates tales of Lincoln's ghostly goings-on.
Now in its third printing, the compilation began with a classified
ad in the Lincoln Journal-Star asking for stories to be
published. Although the author deliberately changed some information
and gave the wrong addresses, the book has been used extensively
as a "walking guide" for amateur ghost-hunters. Source: Loaned by Dale Bacon,
Lincoln

In this 2005 book, Nebraska native, Gary Leon Hill tells a family
story of how his Uncle Wally and Aunt Ruth, Wally's sister, came
to counsel dead spirits who took up residence in bodies that
didn't belong to them. Source: Loaned by Lynne Ireland,
Lincoln

This 1939 drawing bore the following caption: "Late
in the fall of 1892, women passing by the Emanuel Baptist Church
in Belmont, a suburb in North Lincoln, saw the face of a woman
outlined in a pane of glass. People came from all over the city
to see the apparition. Some thought it was a warning of a calamity;
others, that it was a ghost or was simply caused by a woman who
stood near the glass when it was blown and was photographed into
it. School children thought it was the face of a playmate who
had died."

The Nebraska Folklore Pamphlets compiled
stories from the oral tradition and were issued in the 1930s
as part of the Federal Writers Project. Source: Nebraska State Historical
Society Library Collection
"Nebraska Folklore Pamphlet #12, 398/F31nV.1.